


Gals Being Pals

by fabrega



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Drinking, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: "What are your plans for tonight? No, never mind, it doesn't matter what they are, because we're canceling them!"Gabe raises an eyebrow, looking between his agents suspiciously. "Are we now."





	Gals Being Pals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smarshtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/gifts).



> Blackwatch Week Day 3: Friends
> 
> Thanks, as always, to the incomparable and stellar [smarshtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/). The title is 100% her fault. ♥

It's been six weeks since Jesse left on his mission, and while Gabe would never admit it, out loud or even to himself, he's starting to get antsy.

It's not like there's anyone to be mad at but himself. He's the one that sent Jesse out on the mission in the first place: it was important; it fit his skill set perfectly; and they are being careful, while this thing is new, not to let the changes in their personal relationship affect their working relationship at all. He can't _not_ send Jesse out on big important missions. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else, and it wouldn't be fair to Jesse.

They hadn't known how long the mission would take, and the order is for Blackwatch to stay there until they've obtained the data they need from the terrorists' weapons lab and sabotaged the project so there's no way it can proceed or even be reproduced, so Jesse's still there, still plugging away, six weeks later. He's able to check in with Gabe using his comms once every week or two, the only time Gabe's been able to hear his voice; the rest of the time, a check-in entails a couple clicks of his comms on and off, not even Morse code, just three short taps that mean "I'm still okay". It's not enough, not nearly enough, but it's the only thing that's safe, so it's what Gabe gets.

He doesn't have any regrets about this relationship with Jesse, none at all, but if he _did_ , it would be situations like this.

So yeah, he's starting to get antsy. He's doing a pretty good job hiding it in public, not letting it get in the way of the work he and the rest of the Blackwatch agents still have to do, but in his own time, he's spending a lot of time in the practice range, taking out his feelings of annoyance and powerlessness on things even more powerless than he is, and a lot of time in the gym, working out until he's too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

It's Friday night and he's in his quarters, debating whether to head to the gym yet again or try to finally get into the third book on Jesse's list of recommendations, when the door chimes. A glance at the security camera shows Valdez and Prithi standing in the hallway. Prithi is bouncing on the balls of her feet, grinning but maybe a little nervous, and Valdez looks the kind of grim Gabe usually associates with her having to deliver bad news.

He opens the door.

"Reyes! Oh good, you're here!" Prithi says, sounding entirely too excited. "What are your plans for tonight? No, never mind, it doesn't matter what they are, because we're canceling them!"

Gabe raises an eyebrow, looking between his agents suspiciously. "Are we now."

"We've got something better!" Prithi says.

He glares at Valdez. Her grim look has given way to something more stoic, and she says calmly, "Not my idea, boss--well, not exactly."

"Stef noticed you'd been...a little off lately," Prithi begins.

He stares at Valdez a little more closely. While his and Jesse's relationship was not a secret, not exactly, they'd agreed that it was a good idea to tell as few people as they needed to, at least at first--ease people into it. One of the people they'd told, specifically for official, "not getting court-martialed" reasons, had been Stef Valdez. Gabe had trusted--still trusts--her discretion.

Valdez doesn't flinch. "You know it's true," she says. "You've been off lately."

"And while we're not sure what's wrong," Prithi continues (and Valdez raises an eyebrow back at him), "We figured that an evening out never hurt anyone!"

"What about that time in Bangladesh?" Gabe says, just to be contrary. He is not particularly interested in going out, if that's what they're doing, but he also doesn't really have the energy that's required to fight it without resorting to chain of command, which he never wants to do to his people if he doesn't have to. Besides, if Valdez is going, it can't be anything _too_ intense.

"That time in Bangladesh was a mission, we were specifically in that nightclub to kill those guys, that _hardly_ counts." Prithi waves her hand dismissively. "So are you coming or not?"

"You should," Valdez says. "Getting out, seeing some people, having a beer or two, it'll be good."

Gabe gives them his best Stern And Unapproachable Blackwatch Commander scowl, but neither of them seems particularly impressed. He supposes they probably shouldn't be; they've worked with him for long enough. He sighs and says, "Okay, fine. What did you have in mind?"

.

The bar they take him to is a small place a little ways outside town, nondescript, mostly empty, surprisingly well-lit. There's a series of small booths and tables, some wobbly-looking stools pushed up against the bar, and a pool table and an old-fashioned jukebox. The bar is bustling, and Gabe finds that he recognizes a lot of the faces here, most of them female, most of them Blackwatch. Amirali and Newton and Liao are at the pool table; Domingo is surrounded by a small crowd in one of the booths, telling what sounds like an exaggerated, uproarious version of the mission report she'd handed in about the assignment she'd been on in Belize; Riemann and March and Angela Ziegler are seated close together at some tables near the jukebox.

At the sight of Gabe, conversation goes a little quieter, and he keeps his head down and makes a beeline for the bar while Prithi takes off across the room, presumably to do some amount of damage control. He'll let her handle that.

The bartender gives him a strange look, but takes his order anyway.

"They come here often?" Gabe asks her, tilting his head at the group of agents behind him.

The bartender shrugs half-heartedly as she pours his drink. "There's a group of them comes in from the base nearby every couple of weeks--some kind of girls night, I think. They aren't too loud, don't usually make too much of a mess, and tip pretty well. They also tend to make short work of unwanted male attention, when it comes sniffing around."

"I bet they do." Gabe laughs. Pretty much everybody in the room has gone through or tested out of his combat training courses. "I'll be careful."

She hands him his drink, and he hands her his personal credit card in return. "Make sure all of them get at least one drink on me tonight."

She scoffs. "I doubt you're getting lucky tonight, buddy--not with this crowd."

"I know I'm not getting lucky tonight," Gabe says, "That's why I'm here."

Conversation seems to be picking back up; Gabe can almost follow Prithi's path around the room based on which groups look more at ease now than they did when he walks in. She's still moving, now standing at the jukebox with Kepler and another woman he recognizes as an Overwatch agent but whose name he doesn't know. Valdez has taken a seat with Angela Ziegler, and she beckons him over to an empty chair at their table.

"I didn't know you guys were bringing me to ladies night," Gabe says as he sits.

Valdez shrugs. "Would you have come if we'd told you?" She doesn't wait for Gabe to answer. "No, no you wouldn't have. We did what we had to for the mission to get done."

"I'm the mission?" Gabe takes a sip of his drink and raises an eyebrow.

"You know what I mean."

"Congratulations on being an honorary Blackwatch lady during Blackwatch ladies night, Commander!" Angela says, raising her glass to him.

"And you, Doc," Gabe says, raising his own, "Congratulations on being an honorary Blackwatch lady yourself."

"It's an honor." Angela grins at him. "I'm also here in a professional capacity, a little bit. After the third time I got called here to remove Wake Newton's pool cue from another, shall we say, _misguided_ bar patron, it seemed easiest for me to simply be here in the first place. Besides, everybody's always telling me, you and Jack and my staff and _everybody_ , that I need to take a break. Surely this counts."

"If you're only half on-call, it definitely at least half-counts."

They settle into a sort of comfortable silence, the three of them sipping their drinks. Across the room, Domingo has finished her story about Belize, and it sounds like Liao has made her way to that group and decided to tell the story about the time she and Ana and Gérard scaled that building in Odessa-- _Gérard with his knife between his teeth!_ Gabe mouths along at parts, knowing the story by heart.

Valdez keeps looking at him out of the corner of her eye, looks that Gabe's pretty sure he's not supposed to be noticing. Gabe waits to see if it'll stop, and when it doesn't, he sighs and says, "If you've got something to say, Valdez, just say it."

She rolls her eyes at him, but says, "Any news on the mission?"

Gabe does not have to ask which mission she means. He's not allowed to tell her any details--need to know and all that--but that doesn't stop him from saying quietly, "Supposedly it's getting close. Whether that means tomorrow or three weeks from now, I couldn't tell you. I haven't heard much." He takes a long swig of his drink. "It's been six weeks."

"That must be tough," Angela says. She had been on the list of people he and Jesse had told about their relationship, and he appreciates that now more than he had when they'd told her. "You know, there are people you can talk to about this kind of thing, if you're having a hard time."

"Is that your professional opinion?"

Angela gives him an annoyed look, which softens after a moment. "No. I mean, yes, but no, it's not 'doctor's orders' or anything like that. I'm saying it as a friend. Whatever you're going through, you don't have to shoulder it alone."

"That's why we asked you out tonight, you know." Valdez gives him a soft look too, which is far more disconcerting from her. "Because we're your friends and we worry about you. Being away from someone you care about sucks. We all know it. You've been there for us: when Shiga's sister got sick, when Amirali needed that surgery, when Riemann's shitty ex started coming around--"

Gabe laughs. "What kind of dumbass tries to stalk his ex onto a UN military installation, carrying a concealed weapon he doesn't have a permit for, with a restraining order?"

"The kind of dumbass who very quickly gets what he deserves," Angela quips from behind her cocktail glass. "Which, if I'm remembering right, was a trip to my infirmary with a broken nose and then to jail."

"We're very good at what we do," Gabe says, shrugging.

Valdez nods in agreement. "But the point is, Reyes, you've been there for us, and we'd like to be there for you too."

Gabe laughs weakly, an overwhelmed feeling building in his chest. "Being there for you guys is my job. I'm not doing it because I want to--I mean, I _do_ want to, but it's not--I'm not supposed to be your friend."

"Lucky for you then that Blackwatch isn't very big on 'supposed to's. You're not 'supposed to' be dating McCree, but that's not going to stop you, is it?"

"I'll have you know that we filed all the appropriate paperwork--" Gabe says, gesturing with his glass as Prithi pulls up a chair and takes a seat at their table and deposits another drink in front of Gabe.

"Oh my god," she says, her eyes going wide, "You and Jesse are dating?!" Gabe opens his mouth to answer, even gets a few stumbling words out before Prithi interrupts him, cracking up. "It's fine, I'm just teasing you. I already knew."

"You knew?"

"Well, I didn't _know_ until just now, but it's not like we had no idea. You've been like, like two planets spinning around in each other's orbits for a very long time now--the gravity was going to get you eventually, it was only a matter of _when_."

"I'm glad you think so highly of my professionalism," Gabe says dryly, knocking back what's left of his current drink and starting on the one Prithi had brought him.

"I do, that's why I'm happy for you instead of very, very worried. There are people there this kind of thing would have me worried, but not you guys." Prithi punches him in the arm, which does nothing to help the overwhelmed feeling in his chest. "Hearing you've filed all the appropriate paperwork makes me feel better too."

"It's so romantic, the paperwork," Gabe says, putting his head down on his folded arms on the table. He hasn't talked to anyone about this before; he's going to blame the alcohol.

"You gotta do what you gotta do," Prithi says. "I lose sleep staying up to talk to my girlfriend across the time zones, but it's worth it." She nudges Gabe, and he raises his head. "It's worth it, right?"

Gabe thinks about Jesse, and he nods, smiling.

Everyone else at the table smiles too.

Then Prithi looks at Valdez, whose eyes keep drifting over to something behind Gabe, and gasps excitedly. "Stef! Stef. Is it time?" 

Prithi twists in her seat to see what Valdez is looking at, and Gabe turns too (as Valdez hisses _no, don't both of you look at once_ ) to see a handsome man leaned up against the bar.

"It's time!" Prithi hops up out of her seat, grabs Valdez's arm and drags her up too. Valdez finishes her beer in one long gulp and lets herself be dragged over towards the bar.

Gabe shifts seats to where Valdez had been sitting, where he's got a better view of the bar. He and Angela watch as Valdez and Prithi both crowd up on the handsome bar guy. Gabe squints at them. "Didn't she just say something about a girlfriend?"

Angela laughs. "As far as I can tell, they have a friendly ongoing bet about who can pick up guys that Stef likes. Prithi usually wins--Stef is apparently very bad at talking to men."

"What does Valdez get out of this, then?"

"Practice, probably, and occasionally a nice night with a nice young man and twenty bucks from Prithi? You'd have to ask her." Angela goes quiet, and they watch as Valdez says something they can't hear to the guy and then turns blushing and flustered. It's kind of a train wreck, the sort of situation that Gabe would extract her from if this was an op--and then the guy leans an elbow on the bar and gives Valdez a bright, embarrassed smile in return, and Gabe has to resist the urge to break out into applause.

Prithi joins them back at the table, looking defeated but pleased, and she drops into a chair at the same time as someone claps a hand on Gabe's shoulder. He looks up to see Liao grinning at him.

"Gabe Reyes! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Haven't you heard, Liao? I'm an honorary Blackwatch lady." Gabe laughs as Liao takes the last empty chair. They shake hands, and Gabe is a little surprised to learn he still knows the secret handshake the strike team had made up back during the Crisis.

"I never see you anymore!" Liao sighs and drapes an arm across Angela's shoulders; Angela goes pink and doesn't quite manage to stifle a giggle as Liao says to her, "He never calls, he never writes…"

"I'm not the only one who never visits. My office is maybe a hundred yards from the one you and Gérard share, but I never see you two either."

"Sadly, the stuff Gérard and I are getting into is keeping me pretty busy. You should stop by, though--a fresh pair of eyes as sharp as yours is always welcome, and even if you're no help at all, it'll still be a nice break." Liao pauses, shifts her glass so the ice rattles gently against the side. "There's some serious shit going down out there, Gabe."

"Don't I know it." Gabe raises his glass, clinks it against hers.

The evening goes on, good conversation and good company. Liao tells the story about Odessa, again, and Gabe and his surprisingly-strong third drink tell it along with her as almost all the agents crowd around to listen. The overwhelmed feeling in his chest comes back as he looks at their faces, at these people he cares about, these people who maybe even care about him. He's spent a long time at the top of Blackwatch by himself, feeling lonely, and it turns out that maybe he's not as alone as he thought.

At the end of the night, he, Prithi, and Angela get a discreet thumbs up from Valdez and then head back to base. Gabe is a little less steady than usual, but they make it back with no trouble, and Gabe stumbles into his quarters and into bed, where he is almost immediately asleep.

.

He wakes up in the dark with a splitting headache and a hand touching his shoulder. He looks at the clock--not quite 05:00--and then up at the dark figure standing above him.

"Jesse?"

"Yeah, sweetheart, I'm here." Jesse leans down, presses a kiss to Gabe's temple. "I couldn't wait to see you and didn't think you'd mind. Didn't want to wake you, but--"

"Headache," Gabe mumbles. "I'm real hungover." He must fall back asleep after that, because when he opens his eyes again, Jesse is gone. Had he dreamed the whole thing? The headache is real enough, that's for sure.

The door to the bedroom opens, and there's Jesse, silhouetted in the dim light from the front room. He pads in carefully and sets a glass of water on the nightstand. With his eyes closed, Gabe hears as Jesse drops a fizzy tab into the glass and then nudges it towards him.

"You should drink this," Jesse says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He kicks off his boots as Gabe props himself up enough to drink, pulls off his shirt and his pants and sets them in a neat pile next to the bed as Gabe actually drinks the thing. "Angela says you had a big night."

Gabe gulps down the last of the fizzy water, making a face. "Oh god, is she up already? What is she doing up already?"

"Pretending not to nap behind the main desk in the infirmary, looked like." Jesse takes the empty glass from Gabe and sets it back on the nightstand. Then he pauses. "I probably should've asked before I stripped down--is it okay if I sleep here? My debrief's not too early tomorrow."

"As long as you don't expect anything from me right now but actual sleeping." Gabe scoots over in the bed, making room for Jesse to lie down; when Jesse does, Gabe tugs him close, wrapping an arm around Jesse's torso, burying his face in Jesse's neck and breathing deep.

"I missed you," Gabe murmurs against Jesse's skin.

"Missed you too," Jesse says, and Gabe can hear the smile in Jesse's voice as he drifts back off to sleep.

.

He wakes up in the sunlight filtering in through the window, his limbs tangled together with Jesse's. It's the best sleep he's had in ages.

The clock on the nightstand says it's nearly 10:00. Jesse's sound asleep, snoring gently, and on the nightstand, the notification light flashes on his comm. Gabe shifts slowly, taking care not to wake Jesse, grabbing the comm and checking to see what he's missed.

He has several unread messages. One is from Angela, telling him she hopes he's feeling better this morning. One is from Prithi, saying _I heard Jesse got in this morning!!_ followed by a series of excited-face emojis. And one is from Valdez, a group message to him and Prithi and Angela. There's no text in the message, just a single photo. Half the photo is taken up by Valdez's grinning face; the other half of the photo is back over her bare shoulder, out the door of what's probably a bathroom into what looks like a bedroom, the visible slice of which contains part of a bed and a very naked butt.

He sends Valdez back a thumbs-up emoji, then sets the comm back down on the nightstand.

Jesse rolls over and smiles at him sleepily. "You have to go?" he asks.

"No, just checking my messages." Gabe leans in close and kisses a line along his jaw to his lips--or tries to, at least, because Jesse keeps turning his head into the kiss mischievously at the last second.

Not that Gabe minds.

"Anything important?"

"No, just...just catching up with some friends." Gabe smiles, and lets Jesse pull him back down to the bed.


End file.
